SLIDE 4 Selected Trends in Natural Hazards
- NOAA’s National Climate Data Center (2016) reported the continued
prominence of severe storms and flooding among other weather or climate related events whose losses exceed a billion dollars.[1]
- NOAA’s National Hurricane Center reported that the recent couple of
decades accounted for the most severe storms in dollar losses and other factors.[2]
- The National Climate Assessment trends and projections reported increases
in most climate change-related extreme phenomena: temperature, sea level rise, heavy precipitation, hurricanes.[3]
- Swiss Re reported generally increasing trends in catastrophic losses
(according to their threshold definitions based on “insured losses (claims), economic losses, and casualties”): “353 catastrophe events across the world in 2015, up from 339 in 2014. Of those, 198 were natural catastrophes, the highest ever recorded in one year,” most of which are weather-related.[4]
- NOAA reported that records are being exceeded or almost being exceeded
for temperature (NOAA’s State of the Climate), hurricane extremes, and ice loss (NOAA National Snow and Ice Data Center).[5]
Sources: [1]NOAA National Climate Data Center (2016) [2]Blake, E.S., C.W. Landsea and E.J. Gibney (August 2011) The Deadliest, Costliest, and Most Intense United States Tropical Cyclones from 1851 to 2010 NWS NHC-6, available at http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/pdf/nws-nhc-6.pdf [3]Walsh, J., et al. (2014) Ch. 2: Our Changing Climate. Climate Change Impacts in the United States: The Third National Climate Assessment, J. M. Melillo, Terese (T.C.) Richmond, and G. W. Yohe, Eds., U.S. Global Change Research Program, 19-67. doi:10.7930/J0KW5CXT. pp. 19-67.Page 20-
- 21. http://nca2014.globalchange.gov/report/our-changing-climate/introduction
[4]Swiss Re (2016) Sigma Report No. 1/2016, pages 2 and 5. [5]NOAA (2016) State of the Climate; National Snow and Ice Data Center Note: These findings can vary by location.